Book of the Body

A discount technical text, where they photographed the cadaver

of an executed convict, micro-dissected into sheets so thin,

the precision of the blade is inexplicable. Nothing shocking—

a mass of gel and coagulation,

the disproportionately scant meat clumped or stretched

taut and strapped between the white bone columns,

no liquid left in the organs and blood vessels.

The necrotic tissue—depilated and dry-iced,

accepts its neutralized color.

Naturally, I'm predisposed to certain areas.

First, I look to the heart. Next, I search for compromise

behind the cranium, and within the orb of a sliced pupil to explain sight.

And then there's the deepest reaches of the machines of love.

Starting with the skull, an anterior transverse cross-section

through the opaque minor lens reveals vitreous optics of the Universe.

A deeper version of the same cut bares a penis chambered like the heart,

while a coronal view exposes the face behind the mask

drawn over the evacuated oral and sinus cavities.

for the laser, his corpse encased in hardened foam,

young, relatively healthy, a few things missing:

appendix, a tooth and a testicle. As for organ donation,

the lethal injection rendered him unsuitable.